Super Sophomore Anna Rohrer is Tops at Foot Locker

High School Athlete of the Week

A year ago, Anna Rohrer of Indiana was walking around on crutches and in an orthopedic boot to facilitate healing of four broken bones in her right foot, the result of improper running form. Her freshman cross-country season at Mishawaka High was in ruin. Rohrer had to wear the boot for four months; she could take it off for cross-training on a bike and in a swimming pool. When Rohrer resumed running in spring track, she did modified training, about 20 miles a week.

Last Saturday, in one of the most dramatic reversals in high school running, Rohrer captured the Foot Locker national cross-country title in San Diego. Despite taking a fall in the first quarter-mile, Rohrer, 15, worked her way to the lead group in the 40-runner field and bolted ahead with a little more than a mile to go to run 17:25 for the 5K course at Balboa Park. She finished four seconds ahead of Catarina Rocha, a senior from Peabody, Mass.

“Once I caught my breath,” said Rohrer, “I couldn’t stop smiling. It was a crazy, outrageous feeling, to think I’ve come this far.”

Only six months earlier, no one could have predicted Rohrer’s spectacular performance. Certainly not her coach, Chris Kowalewski, who’d guided Anna’s return to running with utmost care. Over the summer, he’d limited her training to five days a week, 35 miles at most.

“We knew Anna was good but had no thoughts about nationals,” said Kowalewski, who coaches boys and girls cross-country and girls track. “Maybe all-state at best.”

When Rohrer returned to Indiana on Sunday as a national champion, friends and family met her at the South Bend airport with signs of congratulations. At a school assembly on Monday, the mayor, school superintendent and principal, along with TV news crews, celebrated Anna’s victory.

Rohrer (pronounced “roar”) is the third Indiana girl to win a national 5,000 title in the last two years. In March 2011, Waverly Neer of Culver Academies (now at Columbia University) won the indoor 5,000 in New York in national record time. Last June, Ashley Erba of Warsaw High won the national outdoor 5,000m in Greensboro, North Carolina, by 25 seconds. Entering her senior year, Erba was on the short list of national favorites for this fall.

On September 15, however, Rohrer defeated Erba, 17:15 to 17:26, at the New Prairie Invitational. Then on Oct. 27 Rohrer won the Indiana state championship in 17:14 for 5K with Erba second, 16 seconds behind.

Erba, then playing catch-up, rebounded with a victory at the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) Midwest Regional in Terre Haute on Nov. 11. Rohrer skipped the NXN regional to concentrate on the Foot Locker Midwest two weeks later, on Nov. 24, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

With Erba also running in Kenosha, an exciting Indiana rematch was set. But it turned out to be a star-crossed week for Erba. Immediately after the earlier NXN Midwest, Erba had to tell Nike officials if she would be running the nationals in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 1, so that her travel arrangements could be taken care of. Despite her victory, Erba declined, putting her eggs into the Foot Locker basket. But at the Foot Locker Midwest, Erba was not herself, placing 65th as the victory went to Rohrer in a 5K course record of 16:54.

Rohrer had become a nationals favorite for San Diego, but what mattered most to her was that she was healthy. In middle school and running through her foot fractures last fall, Rohrer was repeatedly injured. “She had a bouncy, over-striding gait,” said Kowalewski. This tendency strained muscles and tendons.

Last spring, after her recovery, Rohrer set about correcting her problem. “We worked on shortening her stride and strengthening her hip muscles,” Kovalewski said. She finished workouts with barefoot sprints while focusing on arm position and foot plant.

Kowaleski started to see form improvement over the summer. Rohrer bounced less and took shorter strides. Biking strengthened her hips. Pool work strengthened her arms. And from a fitness standpoint, Rohrer’s running with the Mishawaka boys’ team provided sufficient intensity.

Rohrer’s sharpness for San Diego was apparent in a “Kenyan Tempo” workout at a nearby park. Covering 8.4 miles, she did the first two miles easy as a warm-up, then charged the hills and continually quickened her tempo to 5:40 for the last mile.

Rohrer, 5’5 ½” and 95 pounds, was stunned to learn in San Diego that some other finalists had trained 80 or even 100 miles a week. She used that as motivation, content that she’d run as fast as they had on much less volume. Besides, Rohrer didn’t have time for more running.

Rohrer plays the flute in the school’s jazz band and marching band. Her family is one big band. Mom plays French horn. Dad plays euphonium. Two older brothers play guitar; one also plays trombone and the other French horn. And all, including Rohrer, play piano. Rohrer also competes in flute playing and will contest a state-wide competition in January.

Her talents do not stop there. Rohrer’s a triple threat: running, music and… cake decorating. While preparing for next June’s national outdoor 5,000m in Greensboro, and a probable rematch with Erba, the defender, Rohrer also will be honing her skills for the Indiana 4-H Fair, in which she has been a state finalist in cake décor. Her replica of a duck was a big hit with the judges.

Her biggest fan is Kowalewski, who has Rohrer as a student is his honors world history class. Teacher’s pet? “I wouldn’t say that,” said Rohrer, “but he does let me get up and fill my water bottle whenever I want to.”